Anaconda Basses
Anaconda Basses is a new custom bass company based in London. All of these instruments are hand crafted by Andrew-Taylor Cummings and only take 6 weeks of production to make (that’s great for instruments of this quality).
The wood used for the body construction can be either Idigbo or Swamp ash, which both sound amazing. The idigbo wood is slightly heavier but has a little more mid range punch. The great thing about the construction is just how light these instruments are and how balanced the entire bass is (no weight distribution problems).
The neck is only made with 5-pieces to reduce the amount of tone lost to each piece of wood. The less you use, the more tone you preserve. This is due to the amount of adhesive needed to stick each piece of wood together, which reduces the tonal qualities.
A 5-piece neck is strong enough to withstand any temperature change and still makes the tone of the bass sing through. The scale length for a 4 string bass is 34” and 35” for 5 strings giving the B string a lot of definition of clarity.
The pick-ups and on-board EQ compliment each other perfectly while giving a great range of tonal options. That’s what this company does best; they have given bass players a versatile instrument that has a great range of tones. It doesn’t just have a signature sound like a Fender or Musicman, It goes beyond that and gives plenty of scope.
Until I tried one of these instruments at the bass launch event in London, I hadn’t heard of the on-board EQ manufacturer (Glockenlang) but they are amazing, as you can’t hear any difference between active and passive models.
They give great tonal shaping straight away with the active circuit. The Anaconda Basses range give you perfect tone straight away without having to alter the on-board EQ, which gives you all the tonal options directly from the bass.
With a passive/active switch, you can also bypass the circuit and just use the passive option.
The Bartolini pick-ups (P4/5BC) are dual coiled humbuckers, which are switchable between parallel and series. This gives you a range of switchable options between the neck and bridge pickups, which are perfect for getting similar tones to a Fender precision, Fender Jazz, Musicman and other combinations.